A fabulous taste of postwar Snape/McGonagall, made special by the compelling frame story. I love the contrast in perspectives between the young researcher who thinks she can understand the past (ouch!) and the older man who guards his glimmers of it jealously--there's a kind of innocence-and-experience dynamic that reverses what must be going on between Snape and McGonagall themselves. (I really loved this no-nonsense line: "You've been marked since you were fifteen, that's not news to me. But it hasn't stopped you fighting the Dark Lord, and we will still do that, just in different ways." We all know part of McGonagall's relationship with Snape is dealing with his martyrdom and sense of self-importance. Which I say with love for him, of course.) Tender and thoughtful and lovely. Maggie